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AE: Your film portrays parallel universes of freedom/opportunity and confinement/hopelessness. What did you base these portraits on?
AM: I think one of the main problems is our thinking within constricted concepts like polarities. There is good or evil, the "free world" or suppression. I believe the world, the human, is more complex than that. The simple solutions that are suggested by polarities are dangerous. Thinking like "we are good, they are evil" has existed for a long time and justified a lot of horrible things people do to each other. I wanted to show that on either side there are humans. If the "bad guys" are human too they do have a bigger responsibility for their decisions.

AE: I read that you said “The very idea that people somehow have to explain their private life is absurd in itself.” Can you explain what you mean by this, and how it relates to your film?
AM: Everything that deviates from what is considered "normal" has to be explained since it is considered a threat. The majority has the power to decide to be "tolerant" or not to be. Heterosexuals never have to explain their difficulties with their own gender. To them it would seem totally ridiculous to write a letter to their parents, explaining why they only love people of the opposite sex.

My first film for German TV was a coming-out comedy dealing with the absurdity of this act. In Unveiled there are several standards and majorities that define what is "normal": being German instead of a "stranger," being a "real man" instead of a "sissy," being heterosexual instead of a "homo."

AE: What made you decide to make your protagonist Iranian?
AM: Iran is one of four countries in the world where homosexuality stands under death penalty. It is at the same time a non-European country with a very "modern" standard of living and allows the main character to be an educated middle-class person form a huge city like Teheran whose expectations and visions of the "free world" are turned upside down in rural Germany.

AE: Did you learn more about asylum seeking in Germany through making this film? Have you gotten feedback about the film from any women who have sought asylum in Germany for similar reasons?
AM: Yes, I learned a lot about it. I had read a lot about it beforehand. But talking to people and actually being in a fugitive camp within Germany or visiting "fugitive homes" was a different experience. Feedback from people who feel that their story of asylum seeking in Germany is told in the film is very touching. It happened several times.

AE: I’ve read one criticism that you downplayed the moment when Fariba assumes Siamak’s identity as well as the moment when Anne learns Fariba’s “true” identity. To me there is much to be said about keeping those moments understated. What is your response?
AM: Of course, it was a conscious decision to not show these moments as dramatic plot points with a lot of music and other cinematographic devices. One reason is that I wanted to avoid the cliche of such scenes. They always stay on the surface and put a distance between the character and the spectator by watching from the outside. To be with Fariba when she has to succeed in her Siamak identity or fails allows us to be emotionally closer to her. Anne falls in love with Siamak/Fariba. Her hesitation due to the fact that she learns she actually fell in love with a woman seems petty when she is faced with the threat of Fariba's deportation.

AE: Have you been writing lyrics longer than you’ve been writing screenplays or other fiction? What do you get out of each of the different forms?
AM: I have been writing lyrics for songs since I was 14 years old. Writing other fiction was later. Writing screenplays started in 1992. I like the different forms. A screenplay is much more complex on the one hand. You have to create a whole world. But in lyrics, on the other hand, you have to be down to the point with the one emotion you explore.

AE: What have the challenges been in making your new film, Verfolgt (Hounded), and what further challenges do you anticipate?
AM: My new film Verfolgt is the first one that i did not write. It is a challenge to make the story my own story in order to tell it from the inside. Susanne Billig's script is emotionally very deep. It is a challenge to find an adequate visual form and to explore the emotional depth with the actors. The story is a psychodrama about a fifty-year-old woman who starts an S/M affair with a young boy. It deals with vulnerability. The woman gets in touch with her own pain by giving pain to the boy. To avoid voyeurism and yet concentrate on their sexual journey was an exciting experience for me as a director. I want to grow with my work and challenge myself to cross borders and expand my restrictions.

AE: Is there a film that you have yet to make that you dream of someday making?
AM: There are several projects that I wish to make. Next year I would like to make a road movie I have been working on for 10 years now. Susanne Billig wrote another wonderful script that I hopefully will direct in 2007. It is a psychological thriller set in Northern Scandinavia. There is an absurd pop opera about an aging diva I am writing. There I could connect my songwriting with filmmaking. But there is one actress I adore and with whom I would really like to work: Gena Rowlands.

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